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WHYW-TV
WHYW, virtual channel 67 (UHF digital channel 68), is the Import Network owned-and-operated television station serving the Liberty City, Liberty/Alderney City, Alderney broadcast area. History WHYW first signed on the air back on October 16, 1989 as an affiliate of the Home Shopping Network. WHYW was originally owned by Silver King Broadcasting, the broadcasting arm of the Home Shopping Network, thus making WHYW an HSN owned-and-operated station. On November 27, 1995, veteran television executive and Fox founder Barry Diller announced that he would acquire the Home Shopping Network and Silver King Communications, which owned HSN-affiliated stations in several other larger media markets. The purchase was finalized on December 19, 1996, ten months after the transaction received approval by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on March 11. Two years later in 1997, HSN purchased the USA Network, and renamed its broadcast television subsidiary as USA Broadcasting, as part of a corporate rebranding borrowing from the identity of its new cable channel property. Proposed Affiliation Switch In June 1998, USA Broadcasting launched a customized independent station format, "CityVision", which infused syndicated programming—including a few produced by sister production unit Studios USA that also aired nationally on USA Network—with a limited amount of local entertainment and magazine programs (reminiscent of the format used by CITY-TV in Toronto and more prominently, that station's sister broadcast television properties that became charter stations of Citytv, when CHUM Limited expanded the format to other Canadian markets as a television system in 2002). By this point, USA Broadcasting was planning to switch its HSN stations to a general entertainment independent format, with WHYW slated to switch in 2001 as WCTY (which would have been branded as "The City 67"). Promos and station IDs were actually produced for the station, and recent series such as Sister, Sister, NewsRadio and Taxi were acquired for the station. Several of its sister stations had switched to the entertainment format in the prior two years. However, only weeks before the planned switch, USA put all its stations up for sale; The Walt Disney Company was originally the leading bidder for the stations, which would have created a partnership for then-ABC affiliate WELC (channel 6), but Univision Communications outbid its competition in a close race. USA Broadcasting, as a result of the pending sale, scrapped the format switch, with WHYW remaining with HSN for a few more months as a result. WHYW officially converted into a Spanish language station on January 14, 2002, when it became an owned-and-operated station of TeleFutura. This switch created a duopoly between WHYW and Univision-owned station WUVS (channel 61). On December 3, 2012, Univision Communications announced that it would relaunch TeleFutura as UniMás—which loosely translates to "Univision Plus", to underline its ties to its parent network Univision—refocusing its programming to appeal towards Latino males between the ages of 12 and 35 years old. The rebranding took place on January 7, 2013. On December 31, 2014, WHYW swapped affiliations with former Fox affiliate WLFO (channel 3), with WLFO becoming the new UniMás affiliate and WHYW becoming an affiliate with the Import Network. News Operation In June 2016, WHYW entered into a news share agreement with NBC owned-and-operated station WNBL (channel 13) to produce a half-hour, 10pm news program. This broadcast competes with WLCT, WEHK, WFTO, and more recently with WLCW, who all broadcast newscasts at the same time. Gallery Whywwnblnewscast.png|WHYW-TV WNBL News at 10 newscast from 2016. Category:Import Network Category:Former HSN Affiliates Category:Former TeleFutura affiliates Category:Television channels and stations established in 1989 Category:Channel 67 Category:Liberty Category:Liberty City Category:Alderney City Category:Alderney